If you entered the Broncos locker room looking for offensive players who remember the last time the franchise beat the division-rival Raiders, you’d find scant options.
In fact, the list includes only left tackle Garett Bolles and wide receiver Courtland Sutton. Of the 53 on Denver’s roster, seven were around for Denver’s last win against the silver and black.
Bolles started that game at left tackle on Dec. 29, 2019. Sutton caught four passes for 52 yards. The Broncos eked out a 16-15 win against the team playing its final game as an Oakland-based franchise.
Since then? Denver fans know the drill all too well. Six straight losses. A streak that pales in length to a 15-game free-fall against Kansas City but punches above its weight class on the frustration scale.
An interesting thing about that 2019 season: It was Vic Fangio’s first as Denver’s head coach and it started with a loss to the Raiders. The Broncos spiraled to 0-4, actually, before playing to a 7-5 mark the rest of the way.
Now it’s Sean Payton’s first year at the helm and he, too, opens his tenure with a game against the Raiders. Regardless of which way it’s framed — avoiding a slow start or achieving a fast one — he’s clear on the importance of Sunday afternoon and the season’s opening stanza.
It’s the Raiders. Division opponent. Home game. The start of a new chapter for the franchise. Any reason you need, it’s right there this weekend at Empower Field.
“It’s not uncommon when the season starts, you’re anxious to see what you have,” Payton said Wednesday. “You haven’t played a full game with your starters. You’ve been in the preseason. There’s a handful of guys that are new here — coaches and players. I would always say, the first quarter pole of the season you’re in a sprint to improve and make corrections. …
“It’s important for us to have a clean plan where guys are playing fast and those are the things that I draw on as you get ready to start a new season with a new team.”
That the opener is against the Raiders, of course, is not lost on anybody in the Broncos locker room.
“You always want to start fast,” quarterback Russell Wilson said. “Obviously playing in front of our fans here, Broncos Country, what an opportunity we have to go out and set the tone. Against the Raiders, there’s a lot of history here between these two teams. We’ve got to create a new history by playing one game and just winning that game and trying to do everything we can with that.”
A team can lose an opener and still look back at the first part of the year as a good start, but the manner in which the Broncos’ schedule shakes out offers an opportunity. Denver begins with consecutive home games against Las Vegas and Washington before trips to Miami and Chicago. That represents a stretch of teams — and opposing quarterbacks — that looks rather rosy compared to what follows.
Beginning in Week 5, Denver faces quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers (Week 5), Patrick Mahomes (Weeks 6 and 8) and Josh Allen (Week 10) in four of five games. All three of those teams are considered AFC contenders — the Dolphins are, too — which makes for a daunting stretch on the calendar.
All of that gives the Payton-era opener the feel of a pressure-cooker.
“It matters more now because it’s here,” Simmons said. “It’s Week 1, 2023. It’s the Raiders at home. What a way to start off 1-0 in our division, 1-0 in the AFC, 1-0 at home and protecting home court. We’ve got to be able to do that.”
A win vanquishes the losing streak, further cements belief in Payton’s culture and gives a franchise that hasn’t seen much winning in recent years more conviction that those woes are in the past.
A loss doesn’t make any of that impossible, but it does increase the degree of difficulty.
“Just in general, losing the games we’ve lost, especially within the division when we’ve always kind of — most of the games we’ve played have been close — it’s time to win,” safety Caden Sterns said. “It’s time to turn it around.”
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